The True Spirits of an Old-Time Christmas: Wantonness, Misrule and Chambering
Well, of course they had a good time during those wonderful nostalgic Christmases of the Good Old Days! Dressing up in the opposite sexes clothes, or some other uproarious costume, drowning in a steady flow of booze, and empowered by the anonymity and safety of unsanctioned public holiday gatherings! Back when agricultural cycles determined the pace and tone of human life Christmas was a month or more carnival of ritualized class upheaval, and generalized social and personal "Misrule." Let me be your Digital Ghost of Christmas Past and show you a bit of a Christmas past now so denied as to be forgotten by our cultural memory.
Often as not, in pre-industrial Europe and the USA popularly observed Christmastime began toward the end of November - as soon as the years crops were in storage, the markets were closed for the off-season, and the casks of beer were set to brewing so as to be ready by the end of the year. And the Joyous Holiday Riot, Christmas, was celebrated clear on until January 6, if not until "Plow Monday" (traditionally the Monday after January 6).
And, while for the ruling classes the Christmas season has always been (at least in platitude if not practice) a season of piety and domestic blessings, for working people the heart of Christmas was the ruckus and rowdiness of caroling. Christmas carols - "wassailing", while varying regionally, were generally ritualized expressions of the class antagonisms that had built up throughout the year. Frolicking holiday mobs, having spent all day imbibing, come late night would head out, in drag and costume, carousing enmasse from home to home of the local gentry demanding the best food and booze they rich had in store. Offering in exchange their promise of goodwill for the rest of the year when the masters were back in control.
As we know it today "We Wish You A Merry Christmas", a cheery high school choral favorite, is a much tamed rendition of its more menacing forebearers. As well, in some locales, the wassailers would proclaim a young boy or girl to be the "Bishop of Unreason" or the "Lord/Lady of Misrule". The popularly anointed youth was put on a donkey and led to the church or manor, where for the day they had all the authority of a real bishop or lord.
Another important aspect of much wassailing was "mumming" - men and women cross-dressing or generally disguising themselves, and then of course, in their holiday anonymity and intoxication, have plenty of casual, and often anonymous "chambering" [i.e., illicit sex]. In pre-industrial Europe and the USA there was a consistent spike in births during September and October correlative to the wave of "chambering" that was synonymous with the annual Christmas carnival. All that is left to us of this joyous debauch is an occasional kiss under the mistletoe.
The Reverend Henry Bourne, an orthodox Anglican cleric, said it best in 1725 while denouncing all such holiday activities ; "Christmas Caroling is a disgrace generally carried on amidst Rioting and Chambering and Wantonness!"
By the mid-1800s, in New York City and Philadelphia all this Christmastime Misrule had evolved into mobs of drunken young people, many in seasonal costumes, going out on nightly rampages. Like their more rural predecessors these urbanized Holiday Frolickers would amass outside the homes of the wealthy and sing the same threatening and bawdy carols until these homeowners too gave in and provided the carolers food and alcoholic drink. If not satisfied the frustrated revelers might well force their way into a home and loot and destroy it, all the while belting out Christmas carols.
In preparation for the Christmas Season merchants and the wealthy chipped in funds to hire on extra police to try and enforce some order over Christmas. Armed police patrols were sent out - in larger than usual units because Christmas frolickers were known to attack solitary law enforcement who tried to intervene in the holiday merrymaking. This show of force usually failed to keep large crowds of carolers from gathering during Christmas and New Years. And, as this has always been a season of goodwill and goodspirits...the police and Christmas frolickers inevitably fought pitched street battles in the cities and bigger towns.
Much more than the police, industrialism's cultural and economic discipline and conformity via regimented year round production schedules, and the subsequent political and cultural power of the middle classes, that permanently disrupted the lengthy annual Christmas carnival. It was at the beginnings of industrialism, during the Victorian period, that the mythology of Christmas was rewritten, and the consumerist family ritual that we know it as begun.
The origin of Christmas presents was in the fearful wealthy "giving" gifts to soothe the roused spirits of mobs of lower class carolers. But at the end of the 19th century gift giving from rich to poor had become more about entertainment and sport for the wealthy, than charity and seasonal generosity, let alone class struggle.
For instance, the Salvation Army's street corner Santas got their start back during the late-1800s to help raise money for the Salvation Army's huge spectacular feedings of the poor. The greatest of these Christmastime spectacles occurred in New York City at an annual event in Madison Square Garden that involved 40,000 or more poor hungry people. Gotham's bourgeois, after already having had their own family Christmas Day meals, would pay generous sums to come to Madison Square Garden and, dressed in their finest, sit up in the balconies and box seats high above it all and enjoy watching the poor eat. All the while orchestras and choruses provided an appropriately theatrical soundtrack. "poor men at the rich mens table their guts do forage on roast beef, mince-pies, pudding and plum porridge."
Here's hoping everyone finds a Lady/Lord of Misrule under your Christmas tree, and may your holiday Chambering, Wantonness and Rioting be plentiful and safe! !
Deran
[All of the above was derived by Deran from the book The Battle for Christmas, by Stephen Nissenbaum]
MERRY RAMADASOLSTICHRISTMASCHANNUKAAWANZA!
Santa's Red Mushrooms
pub3.ezboard.com/fendingc...D=18.topic
or
www.cosmiverse.com/parano...80102.html
Well, of course they had a good time during those wonderful nostalgic Christmases of the Good Old Days! Dressing up in the opposite sexes clothes, or some other uproarious costume, drowning in a steady flow of booze, and empowered by the anonymity and safety of unsanctioned public holiday gatherings! Back when agricultural cycles determined the pace and tone of human life Christmas was a month or more carnival of ritualized class upheaval, and generalized social and personal "Misrule." Let me be your Digital Ghost of Christmas Past and show you a bit of a Christmas past now so denied as to be forgotten by our cultural memory.
Often as not, in pre-industrial Europe and the USA popularly observed Christmastime began toward the end of November - as soon as the years crops were in storage, the markets were closed for the off-season, and the casks of beer were set to brewing so as to be ready by the end of the year. And the Joyous Holiday Riot, Christmas, was celebrated clear on until January 6, if not until "Plow Monday" (traditionally the Monday after January 6).
And, while for the ruling classes the Christmas season has always been (at least in platitude if not practice) a season of piety and domestic blessings, for working people the heart of Christmas was the ruckus and rowdiness of caroling. Christmas carols - "wassailing", while varying regionally, were generally ritualized expressions of the class antagonisms that had built up throughout the year. Frolicking holiday mobs, having spent all day imbibing, come late night would head out, in drag and costume, carousing enmasse from home to home of the local gentry demanding the best food and booze they rich had in store. Offering in exchange their promise of goodwill for the rest of the year when the masters were back in control.
As we know it today "We Wish You A Merry Christmas", a cheery high school choral favorite, is a much tamed rendition of its more menacing forebearers. As well, in some locales, the wassailers would proclaim a young boy or girl to be the "Bishop of Unreason" or the "Lord/Lady of Misrule". The popularly anointed youth was put on a donkey and led to the church or manor, where for the day they had all the authority of a real bishop or lord.
Another important aspect of much wassailing was "mumming" - men and women cross-dressing or generally disguising themselves, and then of course, in their holiday anonymity and intoxication, have plenty of casual, and often anonymous "chambering" [i.e., illicit sex]. In pre-industrial Europe and the USA there was a consistent spike in births during September and October correlative to the wave of "chambering" that was synonymous with the annual Christmas carnival. All that is left to us of this joyous debauch is an occasional kiss under the mistletoe.
The Reverend Henry Bourne, an orthodox Anglican cleric, said it best in 1725 while denouncing all such holiday activities ; "Christmas Caroling is a disgrace generally carried on amidst Rioting and Chambering and Wantonness!"
By the mid-1800s, in New York City and Philadelphia all this Christmastime Misrule had evolved into mobs of drunken young people, many in seasonal costumes, going out on nightly rampages. Like their more rural predecessors these urbanized Holiday Frolickers would amass outside the homes of the wealthy and sing the same threatening and bawdy carols until these homeowners too gave in and provided the carolers food and alcoholic drink. If not satisfied the frustrated revelers might well force their way into a home and loot and destroy it, all the while belting out Christmas carols.
In preparation for the Christmas Season merchants and the wealthy chipped in funds to hire on extra police to try and enforce some order over Christmas. Armed police patrols were sent out - in larger than usual units because Christmas frolickers were known to attack solitary law enforcement who tried to intervene in the holiday merrymaking. This show of force usually failed to keep large crowds of carolers from gathering during Christmas and New Years. And, as this has always been a season of goodwill and goodspirits...the police and Christmas frolickers inevitably fought pitched street battles in the cities and bigger towns.
Much more than the police, industrialism's cultural and economic discipline and conformity via regimented year round production schedules, and the subsequent political and cultural power of the middle classes, that permanently disrupted the lengthy annual Christmas carnival. It was at the beginnings of industrialism, during the Victorian period, that the mythology of Christmas was rewritten, and the consumerist family ritual that we know it as begun.
The origin of Christmas presents was in the fearful wealthy "giving" gifts to soothe the roused spirits of mobs of lower class carolers. But at the end of the 19th century gift giving from rich to poor had become more about entertainment and sport for the wealthy, than charity and seasonal generosity, let alone class struggle.
For instance, the Salvation Army's street corner Santas got their start back during the late-1800s to help raise money for the Salvation Army's huge spectacular feedings of the poor. The greatest of these Christmastime spectacles occurred in New York City at an annual event in Madison Square Garden that involved 40,000 or more poor hungry people. Gotham's bourgeois, after already having had their own family Christmas Day meals, would pay generous sums to come to Madison Square Garden and, dressed in their finest, sit up in the balconies and box seats high above it all and enjoy watching the poor eat. All the while orchestras and choruses provided an appropriately theatrical soundtrack. "poor men at the rich mens table their guts do forage on roast beef, mince-pies, pudding and plum porridge."
Here's hoping everyone finds a Lady/Lord of Misrule under your Christmas tree, and may your holiday Chambering, Wantonness and Rioting be plentiful and safe! !
Deran
[All of the above was derived by Deran from the book The Battle for Christmas, by Stephen Nissenbaum]
MERRY RAMADASOLSTICHRISTMASCHANNUKAAWANZA!
Santa's Red Mushrooms
pub3.ezboard.com/fendingc...D=18.topic
or
www.cosmiverse.com/parano...80102.html
